The Law of Separation of the Churches and the State, passed by the French government in 1905, completely dissociated the state from the appointment of bishops and parish priests, but, lest this might seem to be an unalloyed blessing, it must be added that it also suppressed the annual revenue of the Church, amounting to 42 million francs. The departments and communes were forbidden to vote appropriations for public worship. Life pensions equivalent to three quarters of the former salary were granted to priests who were not less than sixty years of age at the passing of the law, and life pensions equivalent to half of the former salary to those under forty-five. As a matter of fact, the state became the richer by eight million francs. The use of Catholic buildings was to be regulated by the _Associations Cultuelles_. Without any reference to the Holy See it was decided by the government that these associations for religious worship should be formed in each diocese and parish to administer church property. Several articles in the law regarding the constitution of these _Associations Cultuelles_ left to the Council of State--a purely lay authority--the settlement of any dispute that might arise. In other words it lay with the Council of State to pronounce on the orthodoxy of any association and its conformity with the rules of public worship. There was a good deal of discussion in ecclesiastical circles as to whether the "Associations" could be formed. Pius in his encyclical "Gravissimo," August 1906, decided the question. He had examined the law, he declared, to see if it were at all possible to carry on under its provisions the work of religion in France while safeguarding the sacred principles on which the Church was constituted. After consultation with the episcopate he had sorrowfully to declare that no such arrangement was possible. The question at issue was whether the associations for worship could be tolerated. His answer was that "with reference to these associations as the law establishes them, we decree that it is absolutely impossible for them to be formed without a violation of the sacred rights pertaining to the very life of the Church." As to any other "legal and canonical" associations which might preserve the Catholics of France from the difficulties by which they were threatened, there was no hope of them while the law remained as it was. "We declare that it is not permissible to try any other kind of association as long as it is not established in a sure and legal manner that the divine constitution of the Church, the immutable rights of the Roman Pontiff and of the bishops, as well as their authority over the necessary property of the Church, and particularly over sacred edifices, shall be irrevocably placed in the said associations in full security."